Rams Open Mountain West Tournament Against Spartans

FORT COLLINS – Back to 0-0 for all teams as the 2024 Mountain West Tournament begins on Wednesday for Colorado State men's basketball. The Rams enter the tournament as the No. 7 seed facing San Jose State in the first round at 2:30 p.m. MT / 1:30 p.m. PT inside the Thomas and Mack Center.

Opening Tip
- Colorado State enters the 2024 Mountain West Tournament as the No. 7 seed. This is the second time CSU has been the No. 7 seed, the other coming in 2002 where they fell in the quarterfinals to No. 2 seed Utah 69-66.
- Isaiah Stevens and Nique Clifford earned All-Mountain West honors for the 2023-24 season. Stevens for the second straight year was on the first team while Clifford earned third team honors.
- Stevens is the only player in Mountain West history to earn All-Conference honors for five seasons.
- Colorado State has had a first team All-Mountain West selection for six straight years under Niko Medved in Stevens (2023, 24), David Roddy (2021, 22) and Nico Carvacho (2019, 20).
- The Rams enter the tournament coming off a win at Air Force Saturday 82-73.
- Isaiah Stevens scored a season-high 29 in the win while Joel Scott and Nique Clifford added in 16 and 15, respectively in their home coming.
- CSU has won 20 games four times in the past five years.
- The 22 wins is tied for the sixth most in program history. The program record is 27 by the 2014-15 team.
- Head coach Niko Medved became the first coach in program history to win 20-plus games four times.
- The Rams finished the year 15-2 inside Moby Arena this season.
- The 15 wins inside Moby this season is the second most in program history, trailing only the 16 by the 2012-13 team.
- Head coach Niko Medved is in his sixth year leading Colorado State. He is 114-73 as the Rams' head coach. The win on December 2 against Washington was the 100th for him leading the Green & Gold. Medved is now one of five coaches in the program's history to reach the 100 wins mark.
- Medved was an assistant coach at CSU under San Jose State head coach Tim Miles from 2007-12.
- Isaiah Stevens returns for his final year of eligibility and the nation is taking notice of the guard. Stevens was named the Mountain West Preseason Player of the Year, Wooden Top 50 Preseason List and one of 20 players named to the Bob Cousy Preseason Watch List. He has added on the Wooden Midseason Top 25 and Lute Olson Midseason Watch List.
- He was named one of the 10 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award. It's the second time in his career earning the honor.
- Stevens became the second Ram in three years to earn a spot on the Naismith mid season team. He was also named one of the top 40 players in the nation by the USBWA.
- He sits in the top 5 for active players in scoring (5th) and assists (2nd).
- Stevens has four double-doubles on the year and already reset one of his own records when he posted 14 assists against Wright State. He is averaging 16.8 points, 7.0 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game while shooting a career-best 49.1% from the field and 45.7% behind the arc.
- He became the program's all-time leading scorer against LMU (Dec. 22) when he passed Pat Durham (1985-89) and his 1,980 points.
- Stevens surpassed the 2,000 point mark with his first basket against New Mexico (Jan. 2) and currently sits at 2,296.
- Newcomer Joel Scott continues to be a big presence inside for CSU averaging 12.5 points and 5.9 rebounds.
- Scott scored 16 points against Air Force drawing 10 fouls against the Falcons.
- Nique Clifford has enjoyed his time in Fort Collins transferring to Colorado State from Colorado. He is shooting an impressive 53.6% from the field including 40.2% from behind the arc on his way to averaging 12.5 points and 7.3 rebounds.
- Patrick Cartier missed two games for Colorado State, but since returning has not missed a beat. He is averaging 10.9 points on 52.8% shooting.
- CSU is the only program across all of collegiate men's basketball with not two, but three 2,000 point scorers on their roster. The trio is Isaiah Stevens (2,296), Patrick Cartier (2,357) and Joel Scott (2,860).
- Colorado State leads the Mountain West in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.83), assists per game (18.5), effective field goal percentage (56.0%) and free throw percentage (75.6%).

Scouting the Spartans
Colorado State has dominated the series with San Jose State winning the first 23 meetings before SJSU won both games last year.

Overall the series stands at 24-2 in favor of the Rams after they defeated the Spartans inside Moby Arena 66-47 during the regular season.

This is the second time the two teams have met in the Mountain West Tournament. The other meeting came in 2016 when No. 6 seed CSU won over No. 11 SJSU 80-61.

What's Ahead
With a win Colorado State advances to the Mountain West Quarterfinals for the fourth straight year where they will face second seed Nevada at 7 p.m. MT / 6 p.m. PT.

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